Starling's Reply
by Samantha Bridges
Summary: One shot: Starling's reply to the letter she received from Lecter. R&R, please.


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…but in the night

the darkness breathes

giving life

to memories

silence is refining

every thought

within his heart…

Her footsteps echoed along the corridor as they had so many times before. It was odd, coming down here with the knowledge that what should be waiting for her at the end of the hall was no longer there. Eyes watched her in the darkness, reflecting the image of the TV that still resided forlornly at the end of the hall. The cold stone wall reverberated the sound tinnily and she wised she could turn it off. She was almost there now, passing Sammie's cell. The man was resting as he had before, seated amongst a sea of construction paper scraps, face mashed against the bars. The TV light flickered, tracing the silver line of drool that seemed to eternally flow from the corner of his lips. She walked by and heard a slight whisper as she passed. "Jesa?" This caused her pause and she looked into the cell, meeting the sad eyes and realizing the moment of semi-lucidity. She shook her head, and leaned closer to the bars, if only fractionally. 

"I'm not Jesa, Sammie." she spoke gently, as if to a frightened child. The sad eyes widened momentarily as he considered this.

"I wan too go to Jesa…"

"I know Sammy. I hope he comes for you soon." Sammie nodded and let his eyes slide form her face, his mouth still forming the word "Jesa". As Starling spoke to him, she wasn't quite sure how she meant it. She shook her head fractionally and continued her trek down to the last cell. This visit was sanctioned by no one, not even Clarice herself. Jack Crawford was unaware that she was here again, three weeks after receiving the letter from Dr. Lecter. Dr. Chilton was, quite fortunately, rather late on his return from vacation. The overwhelming majority opinion was that he had finally lost it himself after administering such an institution for so long, and just neglected to return. The dissenting few, along with Starling's own quiet opinion, thought that he might have had an unfortunate encounter with his former patient. That thought brought her to stand in front of the cell, looking resolutely bare without the drawings on the wall and the lack of its former occupant. If the doctor was not there in person, it could be certain his presence was still felt. 

The stout nylon net was gone now, folded and resting on the bolted table. The cell door was unlocked, and Starling felt her feet carry her towards it. It was odd to feel the cold steel in her hand as she grasped the door and pulled. No sound betrayed her actions as the door was swung open, allowing her entry into what was once a forbidden domain. She held her breath as she crossed the threshold, as if the air in here were to be different, unbreathable even. There was no change and she slowly drew breath in as she took a long look around the cell. Slowly rotating, Clarice came to face the cell bars and she found herself looking out on the hallway. Carefully, she slipped her purse from her shoulder and let it drop to the floor. Up, to her left, in the corner was a video camera, the type used for security. It was focused on the cell itself and she was suddenly and acutely aware at the complete lack of privacy Lecter had had. The red light on it winked at her, assuring her that it was indeed still on and operating. Barney's ever repeated words rang in her ears. _I'll be watching you._

Watching indeed. Clarice crossed her arms over her chest as she stared into the lens on the corner. To have every dignity stripped, reduced to nothing more than the state of a caged animal. It flashed across her mind that there was no wonder he had been willing to bargain with her for a window. He had been in this windowless pit for eight long years, trapped along with the likes of the inexcusably rude Miggs and the unfortunate Sammie. She stood there staring into the small lens of the camera, as if trying to peer beyond and unlock any secrets it held.

The violent ward, if it could be called a ward, was unusually silent. There was the drone of the television in the background, like the buzz of cicadas in the summer sun. The same evangelical program that had been playing the night she returned from the storage until and the discovery of Klaus' head. A fledgling killer's first effort at transformation. Unconsciously Clarice's hand reached to her cheek, where the gunpowder was still embedded. She remembered Barney had smiled at that mark when she had come before his desk. He had been reading a book, as he had before, large hand almost dwarfing the cover, one finger lain along its spine as he greeted her.

Clarice tore her gaze from the camera finally, after what had seemed to long a time to her. She turned in the cell once more, looking at the stainless steel mirror that reflected herself dully back to her. She stepped back and lowered herself to sit on the cot, feeling the springs through the thin mattress as they creaked against her weight. How many nights had he sat here, staring at his drawings of the crucifixion and of Florence. How many nights had he lain here, reflecting on what he had lost, of all that had slipped through his fingers? 

How many nights had he lain here and thought of _her_?

Clarice blinked at the thought. It was not an unreasonable expectation that he had thought of her. He himself had said that it would be quite something to know her in private life. He had assured her that the world was more interesting with her in it, and that some of their stars were the same. How could he _not_ have thought of her while locked in this cell? A small part of Clarice informed her that it was vain to think that others could want her, could covet her.

_Don't you feel the eyes moving over you?_

_Like yours, Doctor_, she thought as she looked to the ceiling from her seated position. There was no denying that she had felt his eyes on her, from the first moment they met to the last time they had spoken in Memphis. We don't seek things out to covet. And Clarice Starling desperately wanted to believe that Dr. Lecter coveted her, even as secretly as she coveted him. She closed her eyes, and scooted back on the cot to where her back was resting against the wall. She tipped her head back, feeling the cool rock press against the back of her skull.

Starling must've sat like that for a long while, for when she opened her eyes her neck felt stiff and sore, her legs tingled with a pins and needles sensation from being tucked cross legged under her body. She scrunched her shoulders and pulled away from the wall, feeling the cot shift as she bent slowly forward from the waist. There was a high voice from the hallway to her right, and she turned to it, straightening.

"Looks like you fell asleep there for a bit, Agent Starling." Barney's baby teeth showed white in the dismal dungeon light as he stood in the cell door. 

"Mmmmm." was all she could manage as she scooted from the bed, rubbing her legs as she stood, trying to bring feeling back into them.

"Did you find what you were looking for, Agent Starling?" he asked, watching her movements with a trained nurse's eye. A bulge in his pocket belied the book he had been reading when Clarice had entered. It only now occurred to her that it had been Dante's _Divine Comedy_. There had been a definite influence on Barney's reading habits by Dr. Lecter. Clarice began to shake her head.

"There's nothing left."

Barney nodded. "They took almost everything after Memphis. Probably stuffed it in a box somewhere in some closet in this place." he let out a small bark of laughter as he spoke. "Probably right next to Chilton's box." He did not say that Dr. Lecter's remaining belongings were actually in a box that was tucked under his industrial steel desk. Starling did not need to know that.

Starling felt a wry smile tug at the corner of her lips. Chilton had thought himself Lecter's nemesis, but was rather like a nuisance. She pulled at the purse strap that still hung over her shoulder. The same handbag that had accompanied her first journey here. The bag was the same, but the shoes were not. She thought he would approve of the shoes, a big step up from the pair she had worn to their first meeting. Clarice did wonder if here eyes did still shine like birthstones or if they had faded to a dull glow, like the glass trinkets he'd had as a child after years of wear and tear.

It was tucked away in an instant, filed where she could retrieve it later and analyze it, trying to decide whether it was true or not. She stuck her hand out to Barney, felt it engulfed in that amazingly tender hand. "Thank you for letting me come here today, Barney. I sure appreciate it."

The orderly nodded and stepped back to make room for her to exit. "Of course, Agent Starling." She smiled at him as he escorted her down the hall, their passing marked in seven pairs of eyes that watched them and then turned back to the flickering TV. For the last time Clarice heard the great steel door clang shut behind her and she ascended from the dungeon and back into the late afternoon sunlight.

*****

It was nearly midnight when she finally surrendered to sleep, slumping in the uncomfortable and cheap office chair in the second bedroom of her and Ardelia's new duplex. Boxes still sat unpacked around her, looming in the darkness. An unshaded twenty-five watt bulb burned on the desk at her left elbow, illuminating her auburn hair and the pale skin of her cheek. Her hands rested beneath her head, a pen still grasped in her right. On the desk there was a sheet of paper, the first two lines of loopy cursive visible as strands of her hair snaked across it.

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Dear Dr. Lecter,

I too can see Orion…

*****


End file.
